Under Satan s Sun (1987)

October 3, 1987

Film Festival;
'Under Satan's Sun,' On Faith and Its Testing

By JANET MASLIN

Published: October 3, 1987

LEAD: Maurice Pialat directs in an ordinary-looking style, yet he approaches film making in an extremely unconventional way. That paradox is more apparent than ever in ''Under Satan's Sun,'' the film that won this year's top prize at the Cannes Film Festival and was roundly booed for doing so.

Maurice Pialat directs in an ordinary-looking style, yet he approaches film making in an extremely unconventional way. That paradox is more apparent than ever in ''Under Satan's Sun,'' the film that won this year's top prize at the Cannes Film Festival and was roundly booed for doing so.

When Mr. Pialat approaches more psychological subjects, as he has in such films as ''A Nos Amours,'' ''Loulou'' and ''Police,'' his deceptively straightforward manner and his ability to suspend judgment can have the look of naturalism (though his scrutiny is so keen that it becomes extraordinarily penetrating over a period of time).

But ''Under Satan's Sun'' is about faith, and it's a more difficult, mysterious film in every way. Even so, Mr. Pialat has employed as plain a directorial style as ever. So the miraculous, the visionary and the diabolical fuse here in a film that grapples simply and powerfully with the unknown.

Adapted from a novel by Georges Bernanos (author of ''Diary of a Country Priest'' and ''Mouchette,'' both filmed by Robert Bresson), ''Under Satan's Sun'' begins with a dialogue between two priests. Donissan (Gerard Depardieu) and his superior, Menou-Segrais (played by Mr. Pialat, who is also an accomplished actor), are nominally discussing Donissan's future, though this is merely the starting point for a typically rigorous and complex theological debate. The film's screenplay, adapted by Mr. Pialat with a scenario by Sylvie Danton, is outstandingly literate and also very dense. The interplay between Donissan, once a poor student and now a priest who gravely doubts his own ability, and the more knowing Menou-Segrais immediately establishes the moral and theological debate that rages throughout the film.

Mr. Depardieu, bulky in his cleric's robes and surprising in his earnestness, at first seems far removed from the more robust and libidinous figures he usually plays. Flagellating himself, and suffering in the hair shirt he insists on wearing (despite Menou-Segrais's urging that he not), he seems misplaced. But Mr. Depardieu is able to turn his oversize, lumbering frame into the battlefield on which a remarkable war of the spirit is waged and to embody the essential innocence of a man caught between theological absolutes. This battle, as staged by Mr. Pialat, is both metaphysical and matter-of-fact; no struggle between good and evil has ever been staged with so little fanfare.

Donissan's fate is shaped by a woman named Mouchette, played by Sandrine Bonnaire, who, like Mr. Depardieu, has also done astonishing work in other films by this director. When Mouchette first looms seductively and a little dangerously on the screen, she seems to be speaking to Donissan, though she is in fact visiting a wealthy older man named Cadignan, who is her lover; allowing scenes to run together in this way is only one of Mr. Pialat's methods of keeping his audience subtly off-balance. Mouchette's frightening instability is quickly established and made utterly convincing by Miss Bonnaire's outstandingly unaffected presence. And soon Mouchette has committed murder.

By the time Donissan encounters her, late in the film, he knows more about her than she does about herself. Donissan (though Mr. Pialat makes no point of emphasizing this) can detect sin without effort and is as open to evil as he is to good. ''God twice let me see through a body to a soul,'' he says of these miracles, but their price is high. During a nightlong pilgrimage made by this troubled priest, he meets and converses with an enraged satanic figure; somehow, by making this representation so ordinary, Mr. Pialat makes it all the more diabolical. ''You are marked now with the sign of my hatred,'' this stranger says in parting.

Though it deals with theology and rises to a stunning test of faith, ''Under Satan's Sun'' has a thoroughly secular style. That's one of the many things that make it fascinating. It's a work of great subtlety, some difficulty and tremendous assurance, one that demands and deserves close attention.